Star over Bethlehem Read online

  Soft! Do not frighten her—tread gently—so …

  Pile up the lumps of sticky common clay,

  Tools of your trade, tools that you understand,

  Mould, shape and build with ever-loving hand,

  Be swift—be swift—for beauty will not stay.

  And at the end? The sculptured stone—who’ll buy?

  Some rich man, proud of purse and flair;

  “Fine piece of work! ’Twill give the place an air.”

  How shall he understand your desperate sigh:

  Not this, I saw—not this.

  On rubbish heap, discarded clay says—Why?

  I that once lived for beauty’s kiss

  And now, discarded, on an ashpit lie.

  So why?—I ask—

  Why have I lived?

  From me was beauty formed.

  And now

  Oh why—oh why?

  A Wandering Tune

  HAIR like a mist and eyes so wide apart and grey

  That do not smile

  But look far out as though they see

  Once in a while

  Things that Humanity,

  The rank and file,

  Shall never glimpse—they are so far away.

  There in the crowded street they see

  The desert sands and sometimes hear

  An endless tune, now far, now near.

  The piper pipes. The wandering tune

  Floats out and upward to the moon

  And stirs the palm trees in the breeze

  And stirs the heart that listens yet …

  Oh, wandering tune that wakes again

  Forgotten longing and dead pain

  And will not let the heart forget.

  Oh, wandering tune

  Beneath the moon,

  Now far, now near—

  That endless tune

  Beneath the moon.

  Places

  Ctesiphon

  SPEAK softly, let me sit and, dreaming, see

  A golden arch uprising to the skies,

  See it so clearly through my closed eyes

  That, once again, I stand there quietly …

  There, where Men built for glory, there shall be

  Only bare beauty left, unheeding, wise,

  Scornful of Midget Man who wars and dies,

  Who builds and toils and suffers endlessly …

  There shall remain at last the crumbling clay,

  The loneliness of naked beauty bared,

  The wild birds flying forth from sanctuary …

  Let me remember one enchanted day …

  And all the loveliness of beauty shared.

  Speak softly, let me sit and, dreaming, see.

  In Baghdad

  GREEN

  Green melons

  Round

  Oblong

  Numbers piled up

  Green and round …

  Innocent round melons saying nothing,

  Nothing at all.

  In the corner there are melons gashed and split

  With naked pink flesh

  And thousands of flies settling on them.

  Thousands of flies

  Ugh!

  God sees the world like a round green melon,

  And then he sees the flies

  Buzzing and settling …

  But, being merciful,

  He looks away and says,

  “I will try not to think of these human beings …”

  Allah is very merciful.

  An Island

  I HAVE sat dreaming in a quiet place …

  The green leaves met above my head,

  A river rustled in its bed,

  And all around

  Was sweet and stealthy woodland sound.

  Such was a bower within the wood

  To fit a hidden secret mood …

  And yet my eyes looked out and saw

  Not the dark sweetness of the wood

  But far off misty hills of blue

  Seen from a hillside where there grew

  Genista flowers and Iris white

  (Do you remember our delight?)

  And from that hillside where we lay

  On that thrice blessed halcyon day

  We saw—above all mortal ills

  The misty everlasting hills …

  “I will lift up mine eyes and see—”

  And dream that you are there with me.

  The Nile

  DO you remember water like molten silver gleaming?

  And white sails that crept slowly past?

  Stealthily, silently, as though they knew

  They might disturb our sweet enchanted dreaming …

  My heart, that night, was silent too

  Or did it stir? Stir and awake from its long dreaming?

  It was so quiet that I scarcely knew …

  I only know next morn the sands were golden

  And that day broke for us alone.

  It came and brought us joy—and now is gone.

  But there remain in that enchanted land

  Our footprints in the golden endless sand …

  Dartmoor

  I SHALL not return again the way I came,

  Back to the quiet country where the hills

  Are purple in the evenings, and the tors

  Are grey and quiet, and the tall standing stones

  Lead out across the moorland till they end

  At water’s edge.

  It is too gentle, all that land,

  It will bring back

  Such quiet dear remembered things,

  There, where the longstone lifts its lonely head,

  Gaunt, grey, forbidding,

  Ageless, however worn away;

  There, even, grows the heather …

  Tender, kind,

  The little streams are busy in the valleys,

  The rivers meet by the grey Druid bridge,

  So quiet,

  So quiet,

  Not as death is quiet, but as life can be quiet

  When it is sweet.

  To a Cedar Tree

  DO you remember Lebanon?

  The stillness and the snows?

  The cool cold glare

  And a blue sky—pitiless—

  Or sometimes grey and heavy with unfallen snow?

  In the summers that were of polished brown hills

  (But always the stillness—the mountain tops)

  Here Solomon’s men came to hew and fell the cedars

  And the trees were taken to stand

  Proudly in the temple of God …

  But they had been nearer to God,

  Had lived with God in the hills,

  Had whispered to God in the stillness;

  They had been proud then and unafraid.

  And you, my Cedar tree, in my garden by the Thames,

  Brought in a ship and planted in a strange land

  Near to the river

  With farm lands all around,

  Close to the toil and the labour of men,

  Stately you grew, your branches wide,

  Gracious you stand

  With smooth clipped lawn all around you

  And an English herbaceous border

  Flaunting its bloom on a summer’s day.

  You are a part of England now:

  “Tea will be served on the lawn

  Under the Cedar tree.”

  But do you remember Lebanon?

  Beloved tree—do you remember Lebanon?

  Calvary

  ON Calvary, in midday’s burning heat,

  What thoughts in Mary’s heart, as pale she stands?

  What echoed words, remembered words, that beat

  From out the past, and make her clench her hands?

  Gold, frankincense and myrrh … The Sages kneel,

  And simple shepherds all agog with joy,

  With Angels praising God who doth reveal

  His love for men in Christ, the newborn boy …

  Where now the inc
ense? Where the kingly gold?

  For Jesus only bitter myrrh and woe.

  Here hangs no kingly figure—just a son

  In pain and dying …

  How shall Mary know

  That with his sigh: “’Tis finished …” all is told?

  Then—at that moment—Christ’s Reign has begun!

  Love Poems and Others

  Count Fersen to the Queen

  IN the North the snows are falling,

  In the North the birds are calling,

  But my heart that lives for loving

  Shall not hear its mate reply.

  In the North white streams are flowing,

  In the North the flowers are blowing,

  But my heart that is a lover’s

  Shall not know a second Spring …

  Hers the ring upon my finger,

  Now I pray may death not linger,

  Say of me “He was a Lover,”

  Lived and died to serve a Queen.

  Beatrice Passes

  WHERE she passes, there is Light

  After Night …

  A smile that follows on a sigh

  As she goes by …

  With her footsteps comes a sound

  All round,

  As of wild and woodland things

  Gently stirring fragile things

  When Beatrice passes by …

  With her presence comes a calm

  Full of balm …

  Where she steps the flowers abound

  On holy ground …

  At her touch the trembling trees,

  Even these,

  Put forth tender buds that break,

  Blossoming for her sweet sake

  Who is Light and Love …

  At her coming there is Life

  After strife!

  Larks are singing in the sky

  When she draws nigh!

  At her voice the quivering Earth

  Knows rebirth,

  Stirs me to a sudden cry!

  Then she passes—passes by,

  Leaving (so to me it seems)

  Only darkness filled with dreams …

  Undine

  UNDINE, straight and gold and white …

  Shimmering tresses, braided bright …

  Lips, not scarlet—Scarlet? No,

  Cool and pale as water’s flow.

  Cool and pale against my heart

  All thy body, and thou art

  Like a lily on the lake

  Where no man his thirst shall slake.

  And thy petals tightly curled

  Hold the jewel of the world,

  Looking in thy deep green eyes

  Far I see it where it lies

  Hidden by the water’s play,

  Grave sweet soul behind the gay.

  Now I know no jewel’s there

  So forever thou art fair …

  So forever,

  Loving never,

  Thou art fair, Undine,

  So fair …

  Unforgettably, so fair …

  Hawthorn Trees in Spring

  A Lament of Women

  HOW heavy are the hawthorn trees,

  Weighed down with blossom,

  Laden with heavy perfume,

  Like the bodies and souls of women

  Heavy with fruit of men’s desire

  Or with their own desire in Spring.

  Up in the sky, divorced from earth,

  The aeroplanes pass

  Roaring along on their gallant adventures;

  They are the souls of men

  Set free from earth,

  Set free from the load of blossom

  And the cloying perfumes of Spring,

  They fly and are free.

  Yet at the last they must return,

  Fall back to earth,

  Gliding down presently and skimming the ground

  Or falling in vivid flame,

  Yet still returning to earth.

  And there shall Earth

  Gather them once again in her inmost womb

  And in due course

  The trees shall be laden again

  With leaves and blossom and fruit.

  How heavy are the hawthorn trees …

  How heavy … how achingly sweet.

  Shall there never be peace?

  And cold clear air?

  With never a scent or a breath

  Of the growing clustering flowering earth?

  How heavy are the hawthorn trees in Spring,

  How painfully, achingly sweet …

  The Lament of the Tortured Lover

  I HAVE said I adore you;

  I have said it—I have said it.

  Said it against your throat

  Where the pulses beat

  And under the curve of your breast …

  Outside the moon rides high in the sky,

  A lemon moon,

  A moon the colour of honey

  Made by the bees from lime trees.

  O pale lemon-coloured moon,

  You were worshipped five thousand years ago,

  The temples they built you are dust

  Or buried under the earth,

  But you are still the moon

  Riding high and proud in the sky …

  I am sick of words

  Of everlasting meaningless words.

  I love you—I love you—that parrot cry.

  Cannot flesh take flesh in silence?

  But no—you will not have it so.

  You were made for incense,

  For burning words,

  Words—words—words—going on through the night …

  While I worship the pulse in your throat

  And the curve of your breast …

  In twenty years your face will be haggard,

  Your eyes will be cold,

  Your sagging breasts will not stir my desire—

  But the moon will be still the moon …

  And I?

  What am I?

  I am a man who loves you

  Desperately, blindly.

  I am a man in the street

  Seeing the moon …

  I am an old man in a club

  Ringing the bell and saying “Old brandy.”

  I am curled up in my mother’s womb

  Knowing nothing of all this extraordinary business

  Called Life,

  Unhurt by the torture of beauty,

  Unconscious as yet that beauty is …

  I am all these things and always have been

  And ever shall be.

  O moon, ride high in the sky tonight,

  Ride high,

  Ride high …

  What Is Love?

  LOVE is a white flame—And a smouldering smoky fire

  It is a green tree—And a grey cathedral spire

  Love is an ecstasy—pure—It stirs in mud and slime

  It is youth and delight—It is cold and sublime

  There is none shall say

  What Love is—or is not,

  And which of us shall say:

  “Dwell!” or “Depart!”

  Love will not stay

  And will not leave the heart

  At our desire or plea.

  But oh! for me

  This would I pray

  That Love might be a tree

  Rooted in time—for all eternity.

  To M.E.L.M. in Absence

  NOW is the winter past, but for my part

  Still winter stays until we meet again.

  Dear love, I have your promise and your heart

  But lacking touch and sight, spring buds bring pain.

  Friendship is ours, and still in absence grows.

  No dearer friend I own, so close, so kind.

  Knowledge is yours, from you to me it flows

  And I have loved your wise and gentle mind.

  Beauty we share, a white magnolia tree

  Rooted in England brings you to my side

  And Roman columns rising
from the sea

  Must surely bring remembrance with the tide.

  So in my winter, love, I dream of spring

  Enclosed within the circle of your ring …

  Remembrance

  IF I should leave you in the days to come—

  God grant that may not be—

  But yet if so,

  Your love for me must fade I know.

  You will remember—and you will forget.

  But oh! imperishable—strong

  My love for you shall burn and glow

  Deep in your heart—your whole life long,

  Unknown, unseen, but living still in bliss

  So you shall bear me with you all the days.

  Forget then what you will.

  I died—but not my love for you,

  That lives for aye—though dumb,

  Remember this

  If I should leave you in the days to come.

  A Choice

  I AM tired of the past that clings around my feet,

  I am tired of the past that will not let life be sweet,

  I would cut it away with a knife and say

  Let me be myself—reborn—today.

  But I am afraid of the past—that it will creep back to my feet

  And look in my face and say, “You laugh and eat

  But I am here with you yet …

  You would not remember—but I will not let you forget …”

  What is or is not courage? Who shall say?

  Shall I be brave or base if I cut the past away?

  Sometimes I have dreamed that you have stood and said:

  “I too have sometimes longed to be freed from the dead

  Burden of our remembrance, free from your sorrow.”

  Let there be no yesterday and no tomorrow,

  Let there be for us only today,

  Ride it—ride it through Time and away.

  My Flower Garden

  THERE is no knowing

  What time shall bring,

  What then is growing

  This day of Spring?

  Love that is lonely,

  Love far away,

  Ah! could I only

  See you for a day.

  Love-that-lies-bleeding

  And love-in-the-mist,

  Tulips that need you

  Still staying unkist.

  You are my heart, love,